Sax – The Woodshed | Jazz Improvisation

Saxophone Altissimo Systems and Your Hidden Second Octave Key

Learning to play in the altissimo (extreme upper) range of the saxophone requires patience, mostly on the part of the player, but also for whatever unlucky souls are forced to listen to your squawking. Progressing from squeaks to music is a process, but there are basic principles that should be isolated if you want to learn to control this demanding range of the saxophone.

2 key elements to playing in the altissimo range:

Throat Control – practice your overtones! There’s lots of literature on this, but Rasher’s Top Tones is the bible. Most of altissimo playing is controlled by your throat, not your fingers, so you MUST start here.
Fingerings – the saxophone wasn’t built to play in this range, and many “standard” fingerings are cumbersome to execute.

How can I settle on the right fingerings?

Ok, so you’ve developed great throat control through lots of overtone practice. But your technique is still not all that advanced up there. There are dozens of fingerings for each note on various fingering charts (see Ted Nash’s Studies in High Harmonics for a good reference), but most offer no guidance for which ones should be used together. Unfortunately it’s not so cut and dry, read on. ...read more

50 Living Sax Players You Need to Check Out. Right Now.

Preface: The following list represents a group of today’s amazing jazz saxophonists. This is by no means the gold standard, it’s entirely my opinion, and the exact rank order should be taken with an extra-large grain of chunky sea salt; it’s just a guide. There may be 50 other guys who I’ve never heard or I’ve inadvertently omitted who are equally deserving of praise. Regardless, you should still check these fine players out.

The aim is to provide a window into some of the top guys on the scene today.

Sorry, no Charlie Parker here. This is meant to be representative of how each musician is currently playing, which means every individual is living and making incredible music.

Hopefully this helps you discover new artists. If any one of these guys is playing near you, please go check them out! ...read more

Is Classical Necessary? A Cost-Benefit of “Legit” Study for Jazz Saxophonists

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Let’s get one thing out of the way: you need to learn to play your instrument before you can start learning to play jazz. Trying to improvise over an Eb-7 chord when you are still trying to remember whether it’s a D-flat or D-natural is challenging, but it’s impossible if you are at all unsure of the fingering for a high Eb! There are many foundational elements that every musician must master regardless of their genre of specialty, including instrument-specific technique, music theory, and stylistic fluency. But how to build this foundation is a hotly contested topic in the world of jazz education.

My classical journey:

I studied music at Northwestern University (class of ’07), where classical reigned supreme. I was fortunate enough to be afforded the opportunity to study as a part of Dr. Fred Hemke’s studio, where I took 2 years of classical sax rep, saxophone quartet, and technique lessons, all while simultaneously focusing on my Jazz Studies major. Through his experience, I gained enormous respect for the dedication, ungodly technique, and general mastery of the saxophone championed by my classical peers. Although everybody knew I was one of only a small handful of jazz guys, they all treated me as a saxophone equal, and I think we all learned a lot from each other. ...read more

5 Steps to Finding Your Sound Through Imitation

When you hear John Coltrane, you immediately know it’s Trane. It’s not the notes he’s playing or his dazzling technique that makes him sound uniquely like himself. It’s his sound. Every jazz musician, at some point, ventures into the abyss in search of their own, unique sound. Your sound is what makes you, well, you. But where do you start?

Let’s begin by defining the core elements that determine one’s “sound”:

Articulation – Contrast Wayne Shorter’s heavy tongue with the light, legato style of Hank Mobley.
Color/Tone – Joe Henderson’s rich, dark tone stands in stark contrast to the bright, aggressive color of Michael Brecker’s tone.
Rhythm– Dexter Gordon plays his eighth-notes straight and behind the beat, while Cannonball mostly uses a heavy swing and plays squarely in the middle of the beat. Sonny Rollins loves the off-beats.
Harmonic Conception – Do they always play a flat-9 over a the five chord on a major ii-V7-I? Do they employ a lot of chromatic runs and enclosures a-la Mark Turner?

Forget About Mouthpieces.

Charlie Parker played on any horn, mouthpiece, and reed combo he could get his hands on, and he always created the same, beautiful, distinctive sound that defines the music we continue to play. How was he able to do this? It’s not his equipment that made the sound. It was his conception.

In order to sound like yourself, you need to have a crystal clear idea in your head of what you want to sound like before you put any air into your horn. So save your money and stop buying new mouthpieces. Instead, find something that gives you a consistent sound and lots of control, and stick with it. ...read more

Tonguing for Jazz Saxophone

Last weekend I met up with a former student, who is now a good friend and has since shifted his focus away from saxophone toward his studies in biology at the University of Chicago. But despite spending most of his time on science that I can’t even begin to comprehend, he still wants to keep improving as a musician. We were playing through a few tunes when he asked for a bit of help cleaning up his articulation. As I was offering a few exercises and tips, it dawned on me…

Eighth-note articulation for jazz saxophone can be broken down into two simple tonguing manipulations: (1) on/off tonguing and (2) half-tonguing.

Why focus on eighth-note articulation? Eighth notes form the foundation of jazz. The style with which one articulates and swings their eighth note is, in essence, the core of one’s sound. This post will focus on the first part (articulation), and at some later date I would like to return to swing analysis. ...read more

Patterns: Part 2 – Endless Possibilities

Maybe I’m just a math geek, but I love exploring patterns on my horn. A plethora of jazz literature is available on scalar/pattern studies (Jerry Coker, Oliver Nelson, David Baker, Slonimsky, etc.), each offering a veritable buffet of patterns for you to get under your fingers and have in your back pocket. You COULD just open one of these books, flip to any page, read the lick, and transpose into all 12 keys, and repeat. But for me, these books just collect dust on my shelves. Meanwhile I’m practicing patterns almost every day.

In my last post I explored why patterns, when used thoughtfully and judiciously, are essential for the improvising musician. …

But how can you form your own patterns? Here’s a framework.

Patterns are composed of cells, or small, mathematically constructed groups of notes.

Coltrane was famous for his exploration and application of various cells.

Patterns: Part 1 – Why Practice Patterns?

Let’s start by eliminating what patterns are NOT:

Most patterns are NOT solo material. Plug in your David Baker diminished pattern lick over the first altered dominant chord you can find at your next gig, and your solo will be about as tasty as soggy, cold French fries. Yes, they are still French fries, and technically they qualify as food, but would you ever walk into B.K. and ask for “extra cold and soggy fries, please”? Don’t serve your audience cold fries.

Bottom line: don’t practice a pattern just so you can have some cool crap to plug into your solo. It’s typically lazy and unimaginative. You should PRACTICE plugging patterns into tunes to get their sound in your ear and notes under your fingers, but please don’t allow that to become your ultimate artistic statement. In my next post, however, I will explore some creative pattern construction techniques that I use to come up with fresh, pattern-based lines. I often find them sneaking into my solos. I am not ashamed of this, as they can be extremely effective vehicles for implying complex harmony, adding the perfect amount of tension or release at the right time. But I think pattern application of this variety is the exception, rather than the rule. ...read more